Song of Radha: Naidu

By: Bijay Kant Dubey 

Songs of Radha puts it, how the states of the heart pulsating with, how the manna, inner mind, mood and heart of Radha at variance with from time to time; how the heartbeat, the heartthrob of a beloved waiting for a lover which but happens it in love? How loverly, divine and mundane is this feeling of love! How this drama of love? How this burning in love! What in it being divine? What in it being devotional? And what is it romantic? Can amorous love be only spiritual? We do not know. Love is a meeting of two hearts and souls turning one. Love is the name of some pain. The agonies of distraught lovers, how to describe it? Love is also the name of joy, but how many of us are joyful? It is also the name of pain. Many bhaktas feel it spiritual pain. Many are but the devotees.

How many of us are the adorers of nishkam manna, desireless inner mind and heart? It is also the name of giving and taking of hearts. How does it sound when one proposes romantically, I love you, I love you? What it in the feeling of surrender to God, the Maker of it all? The pulse of love none but a lover can feel it, what it is love and what it happens in love. What does it pass over the heart of the lovers which none but a lover can say it. The lila of love and we are but a part of it.

Though we call it classical love poetry, but can the classical be so in the absence of the pastoral and the folk element? The answer is assertively, ‘no’. When the hearts are in love, they feel it not how the nights pass it away, time glides and slides away stealthily. How to make it understand the ignorant manna in love and its affection for which the world has always acted as a villain! What to say about the flute of love?

At Dawn as a poem is about the love of Radha for Krishna, a form of Krishnite literature which has been engaging us since long as the saga of Krishnalila, Raaslila taking love to the pedestal of celestial love based on classicism and classical temperament. But love is a thing of the heart. How can it bound with the chains of restriction? The bird will not live in a cage. It will finally get liberated from as and when the chance comes for it to escape to. The elements of romance, love and affection are bound to be therein. Radha waits for just like a bride waits to go to, Radha waits for just as a young maiden thinks of her bridal departure or meeting. So is the case here as she keeps dreaming of her just as a bride in waiting for the groom to come and he is not a simple groom, the Divine Lover of the soul and heart. Here she dresses and un-dresses herself adding to dismay and frustration. Where is he her Ghanashyam, her King? This is the question. Where the King of her heart? The picture is just like the shy and coy mistress of Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress.

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

       But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run. 

       ----Andrew Marvell in To His Coy Mistress

At Dawn

All night my heart its lonely vigil kept

Listening for thee, O Love. All night I wept.

Where went thy wanton footsteps wandering,

Sweet Ghanashyam, my King? 

My bridal veils are flung upon the floor,

My bridal garlands drop across the door.

The buds that on my bed their fragrance spilt,

Grief-scattered, wane and wilt. 

O Flute-player, how quickly dost thou tire

Of thine own gladness and thine own desire!

Couldst thou not find upon my sheltering breast

Thy rapture and thy rest? 

Whose are the fingers that like amorous flocks

Raid the ambrosial thickets of thy locks?

Ah, whose the lips that smite with sudden drouth

The garden of thy mouth? 

What shall it profit to revile or hate

Thy fickleness, her beauty or my fate,

Or strive to tear with black and bitter art

Thine image from my heart? 

Without thy loveliness my life is dead,

Love, like a lamp with golden oils unfed.

Come back, come back from thy wild wandering.

Sweet Ghanashyam, my King. 

All night she keeps it waiting, all night stands she by the door waiting for the coming, arrival of her lover, Shyam, Ghanashyam, but he does not turn up, keeping her in utter doubt and suspense to where he is wandering and taking to his time all day long. The night has started in, but he has not come, this is a matter for to fear in. God knows where he has gone to. She cannot take where he has been, where he can be. All night she weeps and wails as for Krishna, Krishna-Kanhaiya. She keeps it thinking where he has gone away. Where can he be? Why has he not turned it up so far? The heart in love will definitely do it.

Her bridal veils lay it flung upon the floor. The garlands of flowers too matter it not. Everything seems to be dropping from the hands. The buds bedecking the bed too have split their fragrance. The buds and the flowers all seem to be drooping and welting as happiness not,   grief takes over. The floral beds too seem to be mourning for wearing a pensive mood and reflection. Grief pervades in the atmosphere. Here the beauty of dreams and dreaming can be marked in. How the imagery is! How ornate and ornamental indeed. 

She waits for him so earnestly burning with the desire of waiting and meeting the lover. When will he come, the flute-player? When will she get her lover? When will she be able to see him, his face?

When will he come and comfort her, make her understand? She keeps waiting for earnestly with a yearning within.

The locks of his are beautiful enough just like the groves; the face so charming with the crown and the flute and these seem to be consoling the self, cooling the heart, taking to the thickets of the woods. How the lips with the flute! As a beloved waits for to see the face of her lover so is the case here. Radha is thirsty from her within to have a lustrous look of Krishna.

At Dawn as a poem is of Radha, searching with, where has he gone? She searches him all through the night opening the door of his manna repetitively and waiting for restlessly. How are the feelings which she has undergone? What has it gone over her heart there is none to feel it. A poem dealing with Krishnabhakti, Krishnaprem, it is about love for Krishna, the same Shyam-Ghanashyam.

What will it profit if we revile or hate we your fickleness? It is not going to make any difference to her beauty or even to my fate. Nothing can bring it out the reality. Just go we with the image of yours into our heart. There is definitely a divide in between the human and the divine and it cannot be bridged.

Without his loveliness, this life of hers is nothing. If he does not come, what will it happen? How will she live? How will she her time? Where does she lie in wandering? Why does she like wandering so much? What is more important is God’s loveliness and that too is not, then how to live a life? How to pass the days? Love is a lamp lying unfed with the golden oils. It has but to burn, burn and light. Radha asks him to come back, come back from his wild wandering into the tracts and domains unknown. Sweet Ghanashyam, where are you? Why do you not? Where do you lie in?

In the poem At Dawn one can hear the music of Shyam, Ghanashyam; one can Shyama Sangeet, why is Govinda blue-complexioned, why Shiva blue-necked and Vishnu so. Actually the words, Shyam, Ghanashyam lift us to the imagery of the blue, blue mountains and the clouds hanging by during the days of Shravana or a heart laden with grief and pensive reflection. These also create a melody of waiting, burning, burning with the desire of yearning. When the heart is heavy, one feels it so.

At Dusk as a poem is one of joy and happiness which but one feels when one’s period of waiting comes to an end and the transition in mood and spirit takes to another dimension of viewing with the scene of the time shifting so is the thing herein, Radha is happy with the coming of her Krishna Murari. Now it is time to dress and put on beautiful attire and jewelry. Now it is time to be ready. So, she is calling her companions to assist her in the make-up, the dress-up to be made and done. The lover has come and she will go away with. The things of a womanly heart have been painted nicely. The heart of a woman is almost the same. So golden is his face and appearance. So radiant is the image and picture. Whoever sees it, will like the charming and pleasant face no doubt. Who will not like to look such a divine face?

At Dusk 

Krishna Murari, my radiant lover

Cometh O comrades haste.

Bring me rich perfumes my limbs to cover.

Saffron and sandal paste.

Bring shining garments for my adorning,

Blue of the dusk and rose of the morning.

Gold of the flaming noon.

Bring me a breastband of gems that shimmer,

Making the lamps of the stars grow dimmer,

Fillets and fringes of pearls whose glimmer

Shameth the Shravan moon. 

Krishna Murari, my radiant lover

Cometh, O sisters spread

Buds and ripe blossoms his couch to cover,

Silver and vermeil red.

With flowering branches the doorways darken,

Is that his flute call? Sisters hearken!

Why tarrieth he so long?

O like a leaf doth my shy heart shiver,

O Like a wave do my faint limbs quiver.

Softly, softly, Jamuna river,

Sing thou our bridal  song. 

At Dusk when contrasted with At Dawn is a poem of Krishna Murari rather than Shyam, Ghanashyam and here after the waiting, there is the news of the coming of Krishna, Radha getting ready for just as a bride for the groom to come, Muraliwalle, Krishna Kanhaiya. One who is Krishna is Murari and Mohana. And if the manna is in Krishnabahkti, it will not dwell it anywhere. Here Radha acts like a dreamer in the theatre of spiritual love. When we read the picture, the picture and image of an Indian bride hangs before the eyes.

At Dusk is actually a shringaric song, a song of bridal dress-up and make-up as for the meeting with the lover whose arrival is expected and awaited so much so earnestly. Radha lies it happy as for the message, the news of his coming.

Krishna Murari is coming, the flute-player is coming is the theme of the poem and Radha keeps herself busy with decorating or dreaming of the arrival of her lover. She asks her comrades to dress her, to beautify her so that she may look like a bride. Radha asks the companions to sing the bridal song. She thinks of her meeting with the lover with so much glee and joviality.

She asks her companions to bring the perfume to smear her costumes with so that they appear scented. With saffron and sandal paste she will be decorated. The sandal paste designs and decorations will add to her beauty. Colourful, shiny, glowing and silken clothes she will wear with the assistance of the friends. Blue, golden and rose-coloured will match the auspicious moments. A breast band of gems will hang over the breast glimmering and lighting beautifully.

Here the picture of a bride, an Indian bride comes before the eyes, but God knows how the paths of life! Whatever be that, Radha is being readied with utmost beauty care and caress. Beauty touches, marks and decorations add to. Her companions are helping her in getting look like a dream girl, a beloved with an imaginative look which but every girl cherishes it during the wedding time. This is the time to mark gaiety and glee.

But what seconds, punctuates the make-up, dress-up most is the coming footsteps, the thud of the footfall telling of doubtfully he may be coming, may be coming. How will be the groom? How is the party as we often talk of Shiva’s party during Shivaratri? That question of Parvati’s mother is not here in it. There is something of Gandharva wedding in it. This is also a matter of reckoning. What more to say about bridal things, wedding matters, nuptial bonds, matrimonial relationships?

But God has some purpose to fulfill which Radha must understand it and if this be not, he will go away to finally gifting the flute to her to pipe by the banks of the Yamuna whenever pensive or full of memoirs for which the Lord too may have felt pity for. The tears of love, how to express it into words? The heart which loves can only say it.

The love of a milkmaid for the cowherd boy, Sri Krishna is a matter of the bhakti samudra which cannot be fathomed at one go. God is but Pyaar Ka Sagar, the Ocean of love. The song of his murali just keep you listening. Krishna with the flute casts a magic spell over us and we seem to be tuned to his melodies.

The Quest

My foolish love went seeking thee at dawn,

Crying — O wind where is Kanhaya gone? 

I questioned at noonrise the forest glade,

Rests my sweet lover in thy friendly shade?

 At dusk I pleaded with the dovegray tides,

O tell me where my Flute-player abides? 

Dumb were the waters, dumb the woods, the wind,

They knew not where my playfellow to find.

 I bowed my weeping face upon my palm,

Moaning — O where art thou, my Ghanashyam? 

Then, like a boat that rocks from keel to rafter,

My heart was shaken by thy hidden laughter. 

Then didst thou mock me with thy tender malice,

Like nectar bubbling from my own heart’s chalice.

Thou saidst, — O faithless one, self-slain with doubt,

Why seekest thou my loveliness without, 

And askest wind or wave or flowering dell

The secret that within thyself doth dwell? 

I am of thee, as thou of me, a part.

Look for me in the mirror of thy heart. 

The Quest as a poem is all about the romantic quest of a heart in love, about the spiritual quest of a lover in love and the quest is not only mythical, but symbolical too at the same time. We think within, whose quest is it? What is it love? How the feelings of it? Is it of Radha or a lover? Is Radha classical or pastoral? Is it romantic or spiritual, pastoral or classical? The thought and idea may be classical, but the theme is definitely pastoral and the feelings and emotions felt have been put to certain nomenclature and protocol. It is but restraint, sobriety and stoicism which but imparts a classical standpoint otherwise the emotions and feelings are almost the same. It is really foolish to be a lover and so is never understandable manna, the heart and mind of man. We do not know how do we love? What is this loving? Is Radha a living soul? Or, an imaginary one? What sort of love is it of Radha for Krishna?

Are the lovers fools? Why does the heart understand it not? How to say what it is love? How to describe the feelings of the heart? How to burn the lust? But can it be burnt? In classical love poetry, the heart matters it more. Here the lovers burn into the lamp of light. But in romantic love poetry, feelings and emotions are exchanged freely.

The Quest as a poem is a poem of Radha; Radha’s quest for Krishna, where the cowherd boy, the Blue Boy of Vrindavan fluting the flute, where is Krishna gone, Krishna-Kanhaiya, it is but the heart takes to it not, understands it not, what it to say about foolish love and foolish heart. Love-mad Radha and that too in the love of Krishna, what it to say to here, what it to make her understand as the manna understands it not. Radha lost in Krishna’s love is the main thing of the story.

Her foolish heart goes seeking for, searching the whereabouts, crying and weeping, sobbing and weeping, yearning for and hoping against hope, where has Krishna gone, Krishna-Kanhaiya and she keeps asking the wind swaying, passing by if it has her Krishna-Kanhaiya. She is at a loss as for where Krishna has gone.

She questions at moonrise the forest glade where lies he resting in the friendly shade of it, where the sweet lover of hers. Here the imagery is one of the forest tract, the arbor, the grove, the bower and the time that of the moonrise. Now the question is, how does the forest appear to be under the moonlit nights? How does it under the stars twinkling up above? How does it appear to be the moon rising?

At dusk she pleads with the tides asking to tell about the Flute-player, where he dwells. It is getting dark. Why has he not come? The heart thinks it in many ways. Where is he taking time? Where is he wandering? Where has he gone?

All are silent about. None is in the know of, all the animate and inanimate objects of the world, unable to say it, where Krishna has gone. Where the playmate of hers is? Where is he playing his play? Where is he doing his lila wrapped in Maya? The woods, the waters of the river and the winds, all are answerless with regard to his location.

She keeps weeping, placing the head upon her palm, shedding tears, looking it all tearfully with the red eyes, but nobody comes to feel her sadness, the sadness of love, what pains does it love give to. How lonely is a girl? You can feel it here. How lonely a woman in her life? The agonies of the heart seek it consolation, but who is there to console the aggrieved soul, the aggrieved heart?

On finding him not, when she goes to the tract and asks the woods, the trees, rocks and the waters about Krishna and his whereabouts, they say it not maintaining a strict silence. Her heart gets a jerk and jolt just like a boat beginning to start seconded by a laughter mocking her. How foolish is she that she is searching him all around! Does it behove her to be madly after! He is in the bhakti of the heart, in the devotion of the heart. He is within her and if she searches him, she will come to feel it. He may think what she is doing it about, how the state of her foolishness. Why does she think in such a way? Why does she continue to the leaf, the wind and the wave about his whereabouts? Does she not believe him? Can she not believe? It is not good to look everything with doubt and suspense which is but self-annihilating.

But the inward voice leads it to that he dwells within her heart and she must search for in her heart rather than searching elsewhere. To love him is to love spiritually. To love is to love from heart. It is better to look for the Love Divine in the mirror of one’s heart and here lies it the philosophy of love.

Songs of Radha as a poem is a series of reflections, a set of three poems enjoined together to celebrate Krishnite love which Radha feels it for Krishna. As the tunes change it so the notes and melodies with the dawn break and the twilight as do change human feelings and emotions. Love for Krishna forms a prominent aspect of all the three poems under our perusal and discussion, be it At Dawn, At Dusk or The Quest. But it is not only the fault of Radha, but of Krishna too who has won her heart in such way and has dislodged her at the end of the play. In Sagun Brahma there lies it the picture of the Nirguna Brahma too. But we doubt, can one love God in such a way? Can God be a lover? What is the matter? I do not know it.

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

  I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

       ------John Milton in When I consider how my light is spent

 

 

 

 

 

Song of Radha, the Milkmaid: Sarojini Naidu

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

 

I carried my curds to the Mathura fair …
How softly the heifers were lowing …
I wanted to cry, “Who will buy
These curds that are white as the clouds in the sky
When the breezes of shrawan are blowing?”
But my heart was so full of your beauty, Beloved,
They laughed as I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How softly the river was flowing!

I carried my pots to the Mathura tide …
How gaily the rowers were rowing! …
My comrades called, “Ho! let us dance, let us sing
And wear saffron garments to welcome the spring.
And pluck the new buds that are blowing.”
But my heart was so full of your music, Beloved,
They mocked when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How gaily the river was flowing!

I carried my gifts to the Mathura shrine …
How brightly the torches were glowing! …
I folded my hands at the altars to pray
“O shining ones guard us by night and by day”—
And loudly the conch shells were blowing.
But my heart was so lost in your worship, Beloved,
They were wroth when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How brightly the river was flowing! 

Rasalila, Krishnalila, how to take to Krishnabhakti, Premlila, the Lila Divine, the Love Divine  in which Krishna the Lover and none the else but Radha the Beloved, the Consort of Krishna, You are my Love, Krishna, You are my Heart and Soul, how to live, live a life without You? This but happens, happens in love, be it pastoral, romantic or classical. But here the lore of Krishna, the love lore, the ancient lore coming down to us in the form of Rasalila, Krishnalila and the Krishnabhaktas lost in, submerged in,  drenched with premrasa, bhakti-bhavana!  Shringar, prem, is the thing. How to adorn, how to bedeck with beauty? How to make it attractive and lovely? How to hear the story from singers, dancers, poets, bhaktas and the terracotta-plate makers? How their versions and tales? Krishna is in heart, Krishna is in soul. Where do you search Him? But we do not know if Krishna’s love was amorous or not, bodily or spiritual. Can love be purely spiritual? Is it not the myth of love? Who loves the soul, the heart? Makhanchor, Nandakishore? Who is He who steals the hearts from? Who wins over the manna? The thread of love binds entangles it all. The colour of love is fast, fades it not. Love comes from within. Is it bodily or divine?, is the question. But chaste love is rare, rarer. The flute sounding, sounding it, so melodiously and sonorously sounding, resounding it and the gopis giving an ear to the music coming from. This is but idyllic. Here we confuse it really in defining what it is love. How the tune of the murali? Who the flutist? How the tunes of it, the melodies breaking? And who the listeners? The prempujaris, prempujarans? The worshippers of love? Who the adorers of it, how they in reality?

Now we need to locate it Mathura, the river, the villages and the mart of the then times? How were those places? How the ways leading to? And the gopi under perusal is she Sarojini or not? The sakhis of Krishna, the female friends-cum-cohorts?  Whatever be that, leaving Vrindavana, Mathura, Govardhana, Gokul, let us see how Sarojini takes up the scene. How Krishna-bhakti germinate in? How does Krishna-prem draw her close to?

The poem is about Radha, how she started for Mathura as for selling curds in the fair, but the colts and heifers did not leave her behind. They started calling, calling her, lowing from behind which but somehow averted it. Instead of she went on cherishing her dreams of making a sale. She cried too as for selling curds, but the heart laid it not in selling curds but in observing the white clouds of Shravana matching the curds and in Govinda. The river was flowing softly.

Again the imagery of the spring full of buds and the fragrant winds blowing and she with the companions wearing the saffron garments going to at the call of took over the self. Even though she carried her pots to facing the Mathura tide marking, how gaily the rowers were rowing! When marking the river in tide, the comrades proposed to make merry rather than. But nothing could hold her love. At her every exclamation it was but Govinda doing the rounds. They mocked her when she cried Govinda, Govinda, Govinda without knowing the meaning of the word. But the heart was tuned to Krishna music which she was till then hearing it. The imagery is here one of the pastoral background the village maids going to the  river as for filling with water which but gets pictured it before. The heart lost it to the Divine Musician as the music kept it taking the mind away from.

She carried her gifts all along up with her to the shrine to offer it to the Lord, the Lord of life, the Lord of love! What else can be better than worship as the oblation of the heart tendered to? How beautifully the torches were glowing! She folded her hands before the altars to say her oblations. She prayed to guard them by day and night and sought for blessings in that state of blessedness, oblation and devotion. In that state of obeisance and prayer she heard the conch shells blowing. Here one can feel the fragrance of the Divine Incense Sticks, the pearly drops dropping from the Overhead Lotus of the temple. The charm of Krishna music and magic, how to say it? With the hands folded over and in a worshipful prayer so full of reverence and piety, she stood before the Temple of Love.

Song of Radha, the Milkmaid is a song of Radha. It tells of what it is taking place on the heart of Radha. Though she is en route to Mathura, but instead of it the heart is not in selling curds she is carrying with. Even though she wants to sell it, words come it not out of her mouth. Rather than calling curds, she spelt it out, Govinda, Govinda, Govinda and if this be the state of the poetic persona, what will she do? A lover’s heart only a lover can understand it.  Such a thing it is there in a different way in Wordsworth’s Strange Fits of Passion.

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
       -----William Wordsworth in Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love. 

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and O!
The difference to me!
          ------William Wordsworth in The Lost Love

Here the Krishnite love under our perusal is but love mixed with devotion. Love’s talks only a lover can do it. Love’s matter only a lover can whisper it into the ears of. Love is but a secret matter; an internal matter. What it happens within, takes it place internally none can say it. Only a lover can feel it. In James Joyce’s Araby story,  such a scene can be marked in the author’s reaching of the oriental fair late night  and against the backdrop of it, the bazaars lying shut out, he sees two drunk people, perhaps one young man and one woman whispering in the dark lanes which but suggests him to return from without purchasing the gift for his friend’s sister.

We do not know if it is a dream sequence or a poem. The milkmaid lost in Krishna-prem, Krishna-bhakti is not a common lover, but a Krishnite devotee lost in Krishna consciousness, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, Krishna Krishna, Rama Rama. Who’s whose, how to say it? Where Radha? Where Krishna? Where that landscape and scenery and painting?

Krishna-mad Radha, what to say about? Where Krishna fluting, under which tree and where Radha standing, hearing the tunes from, giving an ear to and running towards? How to say it about love, love mundane and love spiritual? Who loves with what feeling, how to say it? Who loves whom? Who is whose lover, how to say it? Love, what do you mean by it? Love, what do I mean by it? I do not know it if my love is pure and chaste from my within or not. Similarly you too cannot say it how your love is. Enter the manna mandir and say you after coming out from? How was your worship full of shraddha? How the flowers of reverence? How it the lamp of the immortal love burning? If you yourself are pure only then you too can talk of immortal love. But here stand we in the mire of worldliness. How to love Krishna by heart? How do you expect our love to be pure? Burn your earthly yearning, aspiration, lust and desire with the oil of Krishnaprem to be lit with the wick of Krishnabhakti to be purged out by the light emanating.

The myth of Krishnite love, how to bust it? Is it physical or spiritual, how to say it? Can love be chaste and pure? At that time will it not turn into shraddha, reverence, a hand full with the flowers of reverence, worship with punit, pavitra (sacred, sacrosanct) manna in a punit  hridaya (heart)? Where the temple of love? Where that immortal love? Where those immortal lovers? If it be not, the hridaya not so pure and chaste, where the pairs looking each other in joy and sorrow as life-long partners? Where even the plain worshippers too? Where the plain guileless adorers too now-a-days?

When we read the poem, Song of Radha, the Milkmaid, the pictures of Rasalila, Krishnalila conjure upon the mind’s plane, the medieval paintings and frescoes reflecting Radha and Krishna on the swing under the kadamba tree or in beautiful attires and colours differently-posed, the artisans making the golden statues cast in gold, some blackly and some other metallic, the folk singers taking us by strike with Krishnadhuna and folktales, the terracotta-plate makers presenting it lively through baked clay work. The poem is a visit to the Radha-Krishna temple and a viewing of the coloured, painted statue so lovely stands it therein. To see the statue is to feel, what it is love, what it devotion! How the feelings of love! It is actually not a poem, but a song of Radha, Radha and Krishna, Krishna and Radha; a poem of Krishnaprem, Krishnabhakti.

Where the Blue Boy of Vrindavan fluting? Where Radha listening to? How the tune, the Golden Tune?  How the Reed, the Golden Reed and the notes of it breaking? How the lagan, the fever and frenzy, craze and whim? How the dhuna of music, the rhythm and beat of music? Krishnabeat, Krishnadhun, Krishna rhythm? Somewhere Krishna painted blackly or bluish. O, how to say about the images and paintings that the painters make? How to about the beats the musicians and singers beat they? How the wordings of the songs that the songwriters write it? How to about the lovers in couples and pairs as the swans do they in Yeats’ The Wild Swans At Coole and The Lake Isle of innisfree?

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread. 

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
          -------W.B.Yeats  in The Wild Swans At Coole

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
    ------W.B.Yeats in The Lake Isle of Innisfree

How do the theatre men enact they Krishnalila, Rasalila? How do they the opera men? A love song and dance drama? The gypsies in the  roadside tents lying nearer to the adjoining parts of the towns how do they make the excellent idols of Radha and Krishna made from clay and painted beautifully as beautiful artworks to be kept in galleries or showcases? Radha’s love for Krishna, Krishna’s for Radha, how to depict it? An art model, how to keep it, a love song, how to sing it, a dramatic posture, how to enact it, a painting, how to sketch and draw it? Krishna in our consciousness, how to be infuse with? There is something of Mirabai, something of Surdas in Sarojini’s Song of Radha, the Milkmaid.

With this the lore of Kirshna exhausts  it not as many had nothing to do with name and fame and they wrote it not the emotions and feelings of their heart as is the case with the Naga sadhus of India. What more do we know about them? What it going in the hearts of the Krishna idol-makers, what it in the embroiderers? How the singers scripting the songs of Krishna? How the dancers posing as to perform?

Who to say why is Krishna a little bit dark-complexioned and Radha fair? Even Yasoda fails to give satisfactory answers. But Krishna keeps asking her.

Where Krishna the Divine Musician and Magician playing the music and it taking us away from here, transporting us into a world of perennial  delight?  The song of Radha, how to script it?

 

Anashuya And Vijaya: W.B.Yeats

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

I do not know it nor can say to if anybody in English wrote such a poem of a mythical debate and discussion centring round human psyche and its chastity, feminine sensibility and its thinking, the notion of keeping of heart and soul dedicated and devoted with full loyalty banishing infidelity and toeing along the classical lines. The purity of heart, thought and idea how did it hold its sway over, how the human idea of the chastity of thought? These were but classical discussions which kept us engaged for as for purging the human soul. But psychology is something different, the layers of consciousness, if delved deep something other will come out and the things are not so as we think it to be. The crude things will remain crude, the core stuffs core. Anashuya’s devotion and dedication we admire and appreciate it, her satihood, the state of purity and chastity upholding feminine dignity and verve. But which is whose here?

We do not know the story as somebody can it that Yeats might have Anashuya on the model of Shakuntala and Vijaya on that of Dushyanta, but what to say it about, nothing sure of? Had Yeats been, we would have for an explanation as none can explain as the poet can himself and is the best critic of his poetry rather than anyone else doing the criticism. Anashuya is but a much debated character and whose character is it here we do not know.

W.B.Yeats is perhaps dreaming like Lawrence thinking about the daughters of Frieda in The  Virgin and the Gypsy. Or, maybe it that he is trying to write a mini Abhijnanshakuntalam  on a lyrico-dramatic format, trying his utmost best to take it further the side characters after assigning them roles and remodelling on that format.

It is the love of a rishi-kanya, a sati-sadhvi, how to feel it? How to feel the fragrance of the  flower blooming in the forest tract as Gray says it in Elegy? An adorer of love, a worshipper of heart and soul in reality as such has been delineated and portrayed herein. How do the  celestial ladies love? How do the royals and classicists? A classical and purist version of love and romance seen through the devotional framework of attachment and loyalty, serenity and calm is the thing of deliberation.. The flower of love, how to feel it, how to feel its fragrance? How the flora of classicism and the Vedic hermitage?

Pavitra prem, pavitra manna, sacred love, sacred inner heart, how to conceive it? How to dispel the images of others from the manna, the inner mind and heart? Niscchal prem, guileless love, how many of us take it to? Here we find Dushyanta forgetting Shakuntala, but such a thing has also happened in British history when Edward VIII abdicated his throne as for in relationship with an American divorcee.

How the Temple of Love? How the flight of imagination? How the ashramite maids in love in the midst of exotic flora and fauna? How the classical version of love story? How the royal story of love? Here the flamingos of love flying? Where the swans showing serenity? How to dispel it guile from the innocence of heart? Who is whose lover? Of the heart or the body? Why does the mind think in a suspicious way?

What it crosses over the heart of Anashuya and what does she take to, how the state of her mind and feeling, how to say it all that? How does Vijaya take to her love? The Cottage of Love and how the worshippers of it?

ANASHUYA AND VIJAYA

A little Indian temple in the Golden Age. Around it a garden; around that the forest. ANASHUYA, the young priestess, kneeling within the temple.

ANASHUYA

Send peace on all the lands and flickering corn.—
O, may tranquillity walk by his elbow
When wandering in the forest, if he love
No other.—Hear, and may the indolent flocks
Be plentiful.—And if he love another,
May panthers end him.—Hear, and load our king
With wisdom hour by hour.—May we two stand,
When we are dead, beyond the setting suns,
A little from the other shades apart,
With mingling hair, and play upon one lute.

VIJAYA [entering and throwing a lily at her]

Hail! hail, my Anashuya.

ANASHUYA

No: be still.
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.

VIJAYA

I will wait here, Amrita.

ANASHUYA

By mighty Brahma's ever rustling robe,
Who is Amrita? Sorrow of all sorrows!
Another fills your mind.

VIJAYA

My mother's name.

ANASHUYA [sings, coming out of the temple]

A sad, sad thought went by me slowly:
Sigh, O you little stars! O, sigh and shake your blue apparel!
The sad, sad thought has gone from me now wholly:
Sing, O you little stars! O, sing and raise your rapturous carol
To mighty Brahma, he who made you many as the sands,
And laid you on the gates of evening with his quiet hands.

[Sits down on the steps of the temple.]

 

Vijaya, I have brought my evening rice;
The sun has laid his chin on the gray wood,
Weary, with all his poppies gathered round him.

VIJAYA

The hour when Kama, full of sleepy laughter,
Rises, and showers abroad his fragrant arrows,
Piercing the twilight with their murmuring barbs.

ANASHUYA

See how the sacred old flamingoes come,
Painting with shadow all the marble steps:
Aged and wise, they seek their wonted perches
Within the temple, devious walking, made
To wander by their melancholy minds.
Yon tall one eyes my supper; swiftly chase him
Far, far away. I named him after you.
He is a famous fisher; hour by hour
He ruffles with his bill the minnowed streams.
Ah! there he snaps my rice. I told you so.
Now cuff him off. He's off! A kiss for you,
Because you saved my rice. Have you no thanks?

VIJAYA [sings]

Sing you of her, O first few stars,
Whom Brahma, touching with his finger, praises, for you hold
The van of wandering quiet; ere you be too calm and old,
Sing, turning in your cars,
Sing, till you raise your hands and sigh, and from your car heads peer,
With all your whirling hair, and drop many an azure tear.

ANASHUYA

What know the pilots of the stars of tears?

VIJAYA

Their faces are all worn, and in their eyes
Flashes the fire of sadness, for they see
The icicles that famish all the north,
Where men lie frozen in the glimmering snow;
And in the flaming forests cower the lion
And lioness, with all their whimpering cubs;
And, ever pacing on the verge of things,
The phantom, Beauty, in a mist of tears;
While we alone have round us woven woods,
And feel the softness of each other's hand,
Amrita, while——

ANASHUYA [going away from him]

Ah me, you love another,

[Bursting into tears.]

And may some dreadful ill befall her quick!

VIJAYA

I loved another; now I love no other.
Among the mouldering of ancient woods
You live, and on the village border she,
With her old father the blind wood-cutter;
I saw her standing in her door but now.

ANASHUYA

Vijaya, swear to love her never more,

VIJAYA

Ay, ay.

ANASHUYA

Swear by the parents of the gods,
Dread oath, who dwell on sacred Himalay,
On the far Golden Peak; enormous shapes,
Who still were old when the great sea was young
On their vast faces mystery and dreams;
Their hair along the mountains rolled and filled
From year to year by the unnumbered nests
Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet
The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,
Who never hear the unforgiving hound.
Swear!

VIJAYA

By the parents of the gods, I swear.

ANASHUYA [sings]

I have forgiven, O new star!
Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,
You hunter of the fields afar!
Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows truly,
Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep
An inner laughter, and may kiss his hands to me in sleep.

Farewell, Vijaya. Nay, no word, no word;
I, priestess of this temple, offer up
Prayers for the land.

[VIJAYA goes.]

O Brahma, guard in sleep
The merry lambs and the complacent kine,
The flies below the leaves, and the young mice
In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks
Of red flamingo; and my love, Vijaya;
And may no restless fay with fidget finger
Trouble his sleeping: give him dreams of me.

What sort of king is it who cannot recognize even his wife? Is love for to be forgotten; a thing of forgetfulness? But against the backdrop of it, Anashuya cannot let Vijaya go and talk otherwise. Yeats’ poem is a study of celestial love. Here immortal hearts burning with the immortal flame of love are at dialogue with each other.  Two hearts in love are chatting dramatically.

I do not know who Anashuya? Who Vijaya? But Yeats knew it Anashuya. How did he come to know about them? An Anglo-Irish poet from across the saat samudras, how could he have? From which pundita did he hear the story? How did he hear the lore of ancient India? How could Yeats think of writing a poem on Anashuya, the talk of the Hindu household? Mostly the Hindu women talk about the name whatever be the denomination. The  feminine chastity, virginity is the crux of the matter as shown in the character of Anashuya is also a thing discussed from ancient times. But our self, can it be so purer and stainless? Is suspicion not present in the mind of man? Can jealousy be expelled really? Can one dispel the thoughts of the consciousness layers? The poem is dramatic and the dialogues are lively no doubt.  There is some internal action going on in the poem. Some sort of dialogue between the selves has been carried it forward.  Something of the personality split has been inculcated in.

Yeats wrote about Anashuya. The story of feminine chastity and purity would have charmed him on finding Gonne contradictory. Would have been in the know of Samson’s Delilah. Keats’ Lamia would have definitely stricken him. Even though we talk of celibacy and austerity, can we banish the carnal desires from our self? Even nuns cannot, fathers cannot, great rishis and munis cannot get victory over human charm, fascination, infatuation with and temptation. What did  it happen to Vishwamitra and Menaka?

Yeats would have definitely begun  Anashuya And Vijay in a dialogue format, but for some reason he failed to complete the poem centring round the chaste character of Anashuya and the other self at criss-crosses so lucidly. Anashuya is just an archetype, a motif, a symbol, a representation. There is something of the old classical times, but classicism cannot be golden all the times. What it is morality; didacticism has always a base rooted into the soil. Classicism though is based on a set of rules and regulations, a set of moral nomenclature and protocol, but everything is not in austerity, rigidity, and hardening of heart.  The ‘papa’ is but inherent in human ‘manna’ and man cannot banish it. Jealousy is but a part of our nature; it is in our heart. So, how to be pure? To be loyal, chaste, devoted and dedicated is good. To be noble, obedient, orderly and meek is the thing. But the Sati story can mislead it all in the absence of some strong reason.

Anashuya  is here just for character delineation and so is Vijaya, but the two like twins as contrasts in studies, as the two divided selves at dialogue with each other arguing and reasoning, submitting and contradicting one by one with their thesis and anti-thesis. To read Anashuya is to be reminded of Aurobondo’s Savitri. To read her is to be reminded of Menaka, Rambha, Urvasie and so on.

The Brahminical order always in search of purity, chastity and virginity, mystery, miracle and morality encourages such a characterization, but can it be possible all the times? Situations and circumstances too play a role n assigning a character. Those who talk of purity, are they pure and chaste from their within? Whatever be that, Anashuya is a link in Savitri, Sati and so on from the ancient point of view. But the case is different from Abhijnanshakuntalam point of view. How to keep if things are adverse, if situations force one?  We should try our utmost best to keep our hearts chaste.

People talk of devotional and divine Mira, lost in Krishnite love, but she faced stiff criticism for her royal lineage, for her yogan attire. It is said, the royals came to offer her a cup of poison and she took it. Sita had to pass the test of the fire ordeal.

But Anashuya is it here, one of Kalidasa and his Abhijnanshakuntalam? The poet draws and derives from. What it is not in Kalidasa’ Anashuya, that is in Yeats who intends on delineating her a bit. But Primyamvada’s part has been assigned to some other as the creation of Yeats.

Actually, he had wished to take two women with one lover, two hearts appearing to be one with one soul in them and they compromising them.

Anashuya And Vijaya is a poem based on the duality of the self, the duality of the heart. The other thing is this that Yeats gave his heart to one, adored her, but she in return gave to another.

Yeats wrote the poem before even when he had not met anyone as Indian allusions and anecdotes to be elaborated and referred to. It was his inward inclination which drew him close to Vedic, Upanishadic and Puranic vision; it was his inner yearning which drew solace from.

Is the discussion a self-to-self talk or a replication of the dialogue in between Anashuya and Priyamvada? The psychology of mind, the purity of feeling, the devotion of heart, what to say it about? How to keep ‘manna’ niscchal manna? How to keep the ‘manna’ free from ‘papa’? How to be chaste and pure from our within? What to say about Anashuya’s love for Vijaya and the romantic ‘manna’ diverting, digressing, transgressing and she checking the supposition and proposition it not with what it may be right or wrong, so whimsical and notion-flirted?

We do not know what does Yeats intend on saying in this poem? Which tale of Anashuya is it herein? The sense of purity, what is it in it? The sense of loyalty, what is it in it? Where does the love of heart take to? How the wings of imagination? Where does the manna go to?

 

Shaper Shaped: Harindranath Chattopadhyaya

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

In days gone by I used to be
A potter who would feel
His fingers mould the yielding clay
To patterns on his wheel;
But now, through wisdom lately won,
That pride has gone away,
I have ceased to be the potter
And have learned to be the clay.

In other days I used to be
A poet through whose pen
Innumerable songs would come
To win the hearts of men;
But now, through new-got knowledge
Which I hadn’t had so long,
I have ceased to be the poet
And have learned to be the song.

I was a fashioner of swords,
In days that now are gone,
Which on a hundred battlefields
Glittered and gleamed and shone;
But now I am brimming with
The silence of the Lord,
I have ceased to be sword-maker
And have learned to be the sword.

In by-gone days I used to be
A dreamer who would hurl
On every side an insolence
Of emerald and pearl.
But now I am kneeling
At the feet of the Supreme
I have ceased to be the dreamer
And have learned to be the dream.

Shaper Shaped as a poem is all about how deceptively man thinks of his power and glory and what it turns out to be in essence; how the State of Things and how the ultimate realization of the self, the admission of it by none the else but the persona himself. Our ego, pride and hypocrisy let us not know the truth. The Will of God is behind it all which but we know it not, feel it not. How the Divine Scheme of Things which is but not hidden from anyone! Only the fools pride over their shallow knowledge, Eliot’s The Hollow Men, the wise say it not. But man drunken with power, pelf and position thinks it not. How does hypocrisy get deflated is the thing herein? How does the balloon of self-ego burst it? How the intrigues of man which but he himself is not in the know of! It is ignorance which but lets him not realize in time. But Alexander Pope’s ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing’ works as an eye-opener showing the way to all with, ‘Where angels fear to tread’. In the words of Kabir, where the mart is small put you it not diamonds on display, for purchase, as for that a gemmologist is needed who can recognize the real worth and price of the gem or the jewel under cover. Thomas Gray felt about the streaks of genius in those lying in the country churchyard who could have definitely attained the heights of glory had they got the opportunities. So, there is nothing to be proud of.

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

      ----Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism

Who has genius? Who has not? Who is talented and who not? How to say it? Talent will flower if it is reared, nurtured. Do not think that he or she is not talented, only you are talented. He or she too has the streak of genius which but we know it not. Have we tried to know them? Who is gifted with what capabilities? Who is with what abilities? We have just tried to learn to suppress. Let us quote a stanza from Gray again:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Are the wild flowers not beautiful? Some are definitely ravishingly beautiful which but we know it not.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

       ----Thomas Gray in Elegy

The poem is a busting of self-ego and hypocrisy; human conceit and deceit. The poet’s use of wit and intellect too can be taken into consideration. Where does self-praise lead to ultimately? How the path of life and the world? Where does it go to? How the time passing? When does wisdom take over to, one cannot say it, when it dawns upon and the counsel comes to.

    We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar

           -----T.S.Eliot in The Hollow Men

Harindranath as a poet is a multi-faceted personality who tries to assimilate and corroborate the assorted things, but the incongruities lead it to nowhere to the finding of the doubt if he is a saint or not, a yogi or a bhogi, a man of practical wisdom or mystical leaning. We appreciate his metaphysics, mysticism, but his wit, conceit displaces us. We do not know it what he is, a mystic or a communist.

How the things have been shaped? How do the things and ideas get shaped? Whose art where lies it in? How the art of the potter? Who the Potter of potters? Here we get reminded of Kabir and his dohas; his artistry taking to the art of weaving and the making of earthen pots. The charkha, the potter wheel, the cotton carder, the images of this sort starts dancing before the eyes.

None can say about the wheel of fortune turning over. None can about the time speeding away. The things of the world are not so as we think about. To be a man is the main thing. Have we ever tried to be a man? It is but in humility, humbleness. While reading the poem, the mythological Irish coat of Yeats so richly embroidered with dances before the eyes.

The poet thinks over the realms of human delving swapping his positions, clutching time into consideration, the dreams he dreams and the roles he plays. How did he use to be a proud potter making the pottery of different shapes and designs? His art was so unique that he used to shape the things artistically and magically with while formatting and cycling, recycling the clay. But there came a time when distaste overrode him and he too distanced himself with the art of pottery-making. Human weakness and frailty took over and desisted from and he realized the futility of doing the same work. Man himself is made from clay then what to pride over as a potter?

Again, when he took to the pen for scribbling his feelings and emotions on paper, jotting down the things of the heart, he felt it within himself that he was but a master of words, a music maker, a word maker. But there came a time when he felt poetry nothing before newly-found knowledge. Fact and reason questioned his sentimentality and emotionalism and he felt the inner crisis, the split between faith and doubt, fact and fiction. What can it poetry give to? Why to write poetry? What does humanity need it most? The poet too a part of poetry.

The poetic dilemma is one of One Day I Wrote Her Name by Edmund Spenser:

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew. 

Again he saw himself in the image of a sword-maker whose swords were brandished in wars; many a battle was fought and lost. So many were killed and annihilated. But the victory of the sword last it not long. It neither could win his heart nor could give a life-long glory. Returning from the battlefield, he brooded over the futility of wars and the element of bloodshed, hatred, animosity, brutality and violence it inculcated in unnecessarily at the cost of innocent human blood shed so mercilessly and cruelly. How long can man talk of war and warring rather than peace, the peace of mind which but gives it final consent and repose? But the reality none strove to know it that he was himself but a sword. None has come to feel that the silence of the Lord is all that we seek unto Him.

Again he imagined himself as a dreamer who goes about dreaming, seeing sweet dreams. He went the way the stone-dealer, the diamond merchant went it priding over diamonds, emeralds and pearls, but the dreams remained it dreams and he felt it deceived. Where does it lie in the real joy? What does it last unto the last? He mumbled and fumbled over thinking it, putting upon the roles. What was actually his role of play? Poetry as the theatre of life and he rehearsing a drama is the thing in reality. But the dreamer too knows it not that he too himself but a dream dreamt and the drama may be a good one or a bad one.

The Shaper shaped it and now it is unto the man, upto the self to realize it what it has been shaped and how the things of the world. What a life to lead! What it the truth of life! But the  problem lies it with us that we feel it not. Know thyself, is the thing which the poet means to reveal it through the poetic images.

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Bijay Kant Dubey

Kalbhairava, what are you,

Are you Kal or Bhirava
Or both Kal and Bhairava, Bhairava and Kal both,
What are you,
What are you Kalbhairava?

I often see you, see you going
With the black dog following
You as the disciple of the master
And you inspecting the sadhakas,
The sadhkas in their huts by the river
Or in the crematorium ghats!

Who are you, who are you, Sire,
Are you Shiva, Shiva
Or an attribute of His,
Who, who are you, Kalbhairava,
Are you Shiva, Shiva or not,
An attendant of His
Or a guard, a watch-keeper?

Are you, are you a door-keeper,
A time-keeper, a guard,
The traveler or the watchman,
Who, who are you,
Who are you, Kalbhairava
Or a test-taker of sadhna
And the sadhakas?

Who you, you, Shiva,
Shiva Shiva,
The fearsome rupa,
The awesome face of the Divine,
Divine Shiva,
The upholder of dhamma?

N.B. The answer too a part of the poem as an appendix.

Kalbhairava going with the tantrical dog
And the dog following the master
Into the footsteps of his
Wherever he is in the dark
To the hill to the crematorium
Keeping in mind the night of sadhna
And the sadhaks burning the lamp of light
Into their huts.